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I have heard strange tales of a man who has done this very thing they say he has seized on a castle somewhere near Bertraghboy Bay, in Galway, and But I am getting weak, Brian lad. Hearken well Ireland is lost; carve out now for your own hand, for the Red Hand of the old house, lad! And take this for my sake."
So the sleeping were roused in haste, the wounded were put in saddle, and with their beasts staggering under them, those that were left of Brian's men closed around him and rode over the bridge through Claregalway. Above the head of Bertraghboy Bay there was a swooping curve in the hill road.
Brian forced himself to bend all his energies toward carrying out his final desperate plan, but he silently vowed that the old woman who had so foully been cut down by the O'Donnells should not die unavenged. On they galloped without pause, gained the head of Bertraghboy Bay, and swung to the east on the last stretch of the trip.
Turlough eyed them keenly, heard how the fight had gone, and then suddenly comprehended what manner of man this huge, bearded fellow was. His face cleared, and without a word he clasped Cathbarr's hand, and asked Brian for orders. "How far from here is Bertragh Castle?" questioned Brian. "It overlooks Bertraghboy Bay," answered the giant.
However, Turlough proceeded to set forth the reasons for such a message, as he had conceived them within his shrewd mind. First, it seemed that the pestilence had visited Gorumna in the absence of its mistress, and that the Dark Master had caught a score of the O'Malleys who had been wrecked in Bertraghboy Bay, promptly hanging them all.
The sun struck the fog away, however, and as Brian rode on he gazed up at the purple mountains on his right, and down at the purple bog to his left, and caught the gleam of the Bertraghboy water out beyond. He laughed as he drank in the keen air of morning. "Best get your edge ready, Cathbarr of the Ax!" Cathbarr grunted, and slung the heavy hammer-ax at his saddlebow.
He remembered little of that voyage, for they met two caracks crowded with men off Innishark that afternoon, found they were the expected O'Malleys from the North, and turned back with them at once. Brian wakened again that same evening, but Nuala refused to let him go on deck until the following morning, when they sighted Bertraghboy Bay.
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